Didn't get to see this on the weekend, between having to take advantage of opportunities to see other movies on their last days in theatres and traveling home. I gave it a B+.

It's entertaining, but flawed. The story feels inflated to make out a trilogy, and despite the running time, the cast is mostly undefined (between this and the two Snow White movies, 2012 was quite a year for superfluous dwarves).

Physically, they have some similarities. As characters, they couldn't be more different.

Click to expand...

Agreed. It's like saying a trash can and R2D2 are identical characters. Seriously, once you get beyond the basic shape, how are Dobby and Gollum the least bit similar?

Click to expand...

Yeah, this is one of the more bizarre comparisons I've seen on here.

Overall, I really really enjoyed The Hobbit. I can understand most of the reasonable criticisms of it - slow start, cartoony and overlong action, somewhat bloated - but none of those bothered me a lot personally. The only real critique I have is that they didn't need to bother with Frodo and Old Bilbo to set things up. Everything else with Freeman and the dwarves in Bag End was good though. Overall I tend to like longer films that have more space to breathe though as a matter of taste.

I saw it in 48 FPS non-IMAX, and felt really immersed in everything. It took several minutes for me to adjust, but by the end of the prologue I didn't even notice the slightly-quick motions except for the occasional shot. And everything was so detailed and so beautiful.

Favorite scene - other than Riddles in the Dark which is without a debt the best scene in the movie, Freeman and Serkis were completely brilliant - was probably the White Council. As much as I'm enjoying the main plot of Bilbo and the Dwarves going after Smaug, seeing Gandalf with Galadriel, Elrond, and Good (if arrogant) Saruman had me grinning like an idiot.

Yeah, the vibe I got from Saruman was hardly "good guy" - he certainly seemed more concerned with having the last word on everything (the dwarves' quest, Gandalf's involvement, Radagast's 'shrooms) than on what was actually going on at Dol Guldur.

As for the film's criticisms - while I thoroughly enjoyed the film, they seem reasonable enough. Though, personally, the only thing that really bugged me was Radagast's bird-poop hair and cross-eyed performance. Strange that in a cartoonish film that I'd be turned off by such silliness, but then again, not every reaction is a rational one.

I liked the White Council scene, great to see them all together... and for the complaint that you could tell Lee was filmed separately, the end of the conversation between Gandalf and Galadriel shows that he needn't have been there either. We know the mighty Elves can speak mind-to-mind... maybe Lorien's "magic hologram" tech works better than Isengard's!

Click to expand...

Galadriel has a Ring. Frodo, who she telepathed with, had the Ring. So, guess what Gandalf has, which is one reason he could do a big blast at goblins?

Yes. Gandalf always had one of the three Elven Rings - the Ring of Fire. It was given to him by the Elves when he arrived in Middle Earth.

Which was why Galadriel could also talk long-range with Elrond, 'cause Elrond has the third one.

So what you got there is Ring private chat.

Also, Thorin's grandpa (and later his father) had the last of the seven Dwarf rings.

Are we sure that Saruman is "Good" here? He sure had a, "Move along, move along. Nothing to see here." attitude toward the Necromancer.

Click to expand...

At the time Saruman was focused on finding the One Ring. He didn't want to bother with the Necromancer until the Necromancer became a threat to that goal.

Click to expand...

Although I am totally reading between the lines here, I assumed Saruman was already secretly allied with Sauron and knew he was the Necromancer, which is why he dismissed Gandalf's concerns about it. It wasn't like he said, "meh, no big deal." He flat-out claimed it was a human playing parlor tricks, and that it couldn't possibly be anything more sinister. To me, that's protesting a bit too much for it to just be Saruman's idle speculation at work.

I've never read the books, but I enjoyed this one as much as I did the LOTR trilogy. Editorially, it feels like the extended versions of those movies. There's a lot of material that could be cut, but most of it provides depth and shading to the characters and the world. Some of it (I'd say 15-20 minutes) was superfluous, for the benefit of those who have read the book(s) or seen the previous movies; in the beginning the most glaring offenders are Frodo's cameo and the dwarve's first song.

Some have complained about the lack of physical jeopardy in the action sequences, but it didn't strike me as that worse an offender than the LOTR movies. To be honest, most of the dwarves were so scantily developed that their deaths wouldn't have elicited much of a reaction from me (which, I suppose, is the film's own problem).

Saw it in 24fps 3D IMAX; at times, the action was a bit jittery in this format, especially during long and fast (and entirely digital) camera moves.

Gave it an A- in the poll; upon reflection I think it might be more along the lines of a B+. Either way, it's a sharp improvement from any of Jackson's other post-LOTR work.

Yes, it's not quite as good as the Lord of the Rings trilogy and probably a bit too long, but I still thought it was awesome! Technically and visually, the movie is a marvel, and the many quieter character moments worked really well, too. The returning actors do great work and I enjoyed Martin Freeman's Bilbo a lot. And Gollum, who looks even better than he did in the previous movies, is a particular highlight, of course.
If I have one major criticism, it's that during all of the spectacular, rollercoaster-like action sequences, there is never any sense of peril or stakes. Despite the fact that the big setpieces look like there's no way anyone could survive them, none of the countless dwarves are ever harmed or killed, which makes the whole thing feel awfully "safe" after a while.

And by the way: count me as a big fan of 48 fps (or HFR). The clarity and the amount of detail is amazing and the lack of motion blur really helps with the 3D and allows for very fast-paced editing and hyperactive camerawork without ever looking messy or jumbled. I think it's totally worth seeing it that way, despite some minor problems (a very "digital" look during the more brightly-lit scenes in the beginning, some movements that seem weirdly sped-up).